Blind
by Eyesdown104
Summary: Written after the call to arms by indigovioletstargazer in response to a prompt from Kripnatic. DRUNKEN QUINN BLURTING HIS FEELINGS OUT. Lots of the f word.


Jesus, he was drunk. Like, crazy drunk. Nearly on-his-ass-baying-at-the-moon drunk. He hadn't been this wasted in a long time, not since the fight with Julia where she refused him any further contact with his kid. The fight itself didn't drive him to drink; he didn't touch a drop that night. He did however get through the best part of two bottles of bourbon the following day once he had accepted that Julia was probably right.

Right now he was out of his mind. The bartender who had been perfectly happy to serve him beer and chasers all evening had drawn a line when he found him in the john, standing over the gully with his eyes closed, head against the wall and his dick in his hand way after he was done pissing. He clapped the night's best patron on the shoulder to rouse him, "Hey, buddy, c'mon. Zip up and ship out. Want me to call you a cab?".

He shambled his way back to the bleached shell he called home. He wasn't supposed to do this, to incapacitate himself and leave himself vulnerable, even when he was stood down. He reminded himself to cast a cautious look left and right as he entered his door but then kicked it closed behind him, not even listening out for the click of the latch.

He could use another drink. Vodka. "Now you're talking.", he said aloud as if he had company, stumbling towards the kitchen.

He squinted at his reflection in the mirror as he drank. "Fucking prick.", he spat at himself, taking a swig from the bottle having already mislaid his glass.

He used to be sharp, alert, a soldier. He used to be sure. Tonight his lips felt like dough, his sniper's eyes were now red puddles. His head was a mess. Why had it all changed? When did every order he was given turn into a moral fucking conundrum? Had he lost it? Gone soft? Because of that little kid in Caracas? Because of Carrie? Time was, he went in, executed his orders millimeter perfect, and got the fuck out again. Zero hesitation, zero questions, zero regret. These days he couldn't even order coffee without demurring himself into near paralysis.

Any buzz the alcohol had bestowed upon him was long gone. He was now just becoming more senile and belligerent by the second. Phantom conversations with his disappointed father. _With your education you could have become an actuary_. Jesus. He sat there shrugging, grimacing, yelling the odd word of an argument into the night and just watching the rest on the projector screen behind his eyes. The bottle neck chinked against his teeth and he wanted to bite down on the glass, chew on the shards and spit them like a Tommy gun. He wanted to fight and unravel in the oblivion of lashing out.

He was suddenly fucking furious at everyone and everything. At Julia for not letting him be a better man. At himself for taking the easy way out. At stuff he had done for his job. Could you even call it a job? It had consumed him, become more like a state of being. He was a fucking shadow and he had damned himself to a lifetime of regret. He should have become a motherfucking actuary.

Something was irritating him, digging into his hip as he slumped on the couch. He fumbled for it without looking and launched it across the room in punishment, watching with interest as the tv remote smashed against the wall, spilled its batteries and clattered to the floor. He noted with relief that it hadn't been his cell phone, which he then rummaged for and found in his jacket pocket.

One missed call. Carrie. What did she want? Something extremely important..._fucking imperative_, no doubt. Another fucking ruse. Or maybe she was in trouble? He liked to think she would call him if she was. He was, after all, extremely reliable. Or he used to be, before his steel turned to Jell-O. He had certain feelings for her, which he had to recognize had sprung up right around the time he turned into a complete pussy. At first, back when he thought she was just a maverick pain-in-the-ass, it was a grudging respect. This then progressed to fierce protectiveness and from there he had slipped into, well, wherever the fuck he found himself right now. You know what they say when it spreads from your brain to your lungs and your heart and gets into your bones? Lost cause. Fucking terminal.

He sat there in the dark, snarling, gnashing his teeth, muttering. He had almost drank the bottle dry. _Who appointed you her guardian angel, anyway? _What was he going to do? Step into the breach? Play daddy?

_Well, Mommy is a spy...can you say 'bi-polar'? Papa is an assassin. 'Badass', that's right, good girl! And your real daddy? Well, he was a shady-ass terrorist. No, actually, nobody even knows what the fuck he was... _

There was a very tiny voice in the back of his head screaming for him not to do it, but he attached his silencer, administered a single bullet to its forehead and called her anyway.

"It's me. Um...You're probably sleeping right now. So..."

He paused and wondered just what it was he wanted to say to her.

"So, do you ever just think '_fuck it'_? I've been thinking that a lot lately, to tell you the truth...that my judgment is off, or just gone completely..."

He trailed off. Just the sound of him breathing through a fog of sweat and vodka. A long silence as he thought.

"At what point do you draw the line?", he slurred. "Bent over a seven-year-old venezuelan boy at 3am praying for a pulse? That should do it. I just...I just don't know any more, Carrie. The times I should have pulled the trigger but didn't are beginning to balance out the times that I did pull the trigger but shouldn't have. It all cancels out, you know? What do you achieve, except a body-count? Cause and effect. To every action, a reaction, a consequence. There are real fucking consequences...just never the ones I intended. Like at the lake...he was praying and... It would have been for the best. You have to live with it. I don't know... When I look down the scope these days, I don't see only the crosshairs any more. I don't know if I can do it any longer."

Drunk as he was, he realized that he was straying into explosive territory and stopped short.

"By the way, me shooting you? You should take it as a compliment. You know? You're so...I just...I wouldn't let anyone else shoot you, that's all."

He hung up.

He wrested his eyebrows high in the hope they might drag his leaden eyelids with them but apparently that wasn't how the body worked. His head wobbled atop his neck like it wasn't attached and he managed equilibrium for maybe a minute before his face finally hit fabric. Three and a half hours later, he awoke swaddled in graying light and luminous pain. Eels were squirming behind his eyes and lint from the couch was stuck to his tongue. He prayed that dawn would grant him a reprieve.

He sat at the back of the darkened Ops room pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed, imagining that with this action he could prevent his liquified brain from dripping out of his nostril onto his shirt. He wished he truly was a fucking shadow.

When he opened his eyes, she was standing in front of him with her phone in her hand.

"Quinn, do we need to talk?", she frowned. He couldn't tell if she was genuinely concerned or pissed. He couldn't recall too many details but he did remember rambling. Shit.

"Absolutely fucking not, Carrie.", he warned, motionless, wishing this all away.

She lumbered around the bench and lowered herself and her bowling ball belly into the seat next to his. She shot him a sidelong glance. He'd keep. If there was one thing Carrie was good at it was persistence.


End file.
